The Smurfs (2011)

The Smurfs Synopsis

When the evil wizard Gargamel chases the tiny blue Smurfs out of their village, they tumble from their magical world and into ours -- in fact, smack dab in the middle of Central Park. Just three apples high and stuck in the Big Apple, the Smurfs must find a way to get back to their village before Gargamel tracks them down.

This week Katey and Dave have doubleheader tidbit talk about NBC and HBO's Girls, Patches defends his love of The Smurfs, and the guys get into a conversation about what makes some humor offensive. All that plus a lightning round inspired by the DVD release of Wreck-It Ralph

If you don't have kids, odds are you never saw the first Smurfs film and probably never will. If you do have kids, you might have taken them to see it out of your own nostalgia for the 80s cartoon, and of course, the constant need to entertain them with something

I really didn't like The Smurfs. In addition to being insipid and stupid, it was, as I said in my review, "so completely lifeless it never manages to justify its own existence." That said, I do think that a studio could make a good Smurfs movie. All they would have to do is stick to what made the characters great in the first place and refuse to modernize them for a "young, hip crowd."

The biggest blockbuster movie going season of the year often has implications beyond the numbers, so here we are to break down who came out of the summer smelling like a rose, and who came out Ryan Reynolds. These are the biggest winners and losers of Summer 2011, as we see them.

America, you must now reap what you sowed. The Smurfs is standing tall at the box office, with $128 million worldwide after just 2 weeks in release, despite the fact that it was critically loathed and is a blatant, pandering attempt to mine the 80s for nostalgic cash

How many monkeys...sorry, apes...does it take to make a Planet of the Apes prequel? About $93 million worth. And that's a small price tag for a movie where a vast majority of the shots include at least one, and often dozens, of CGI chimps, gorillas or orangutans. And it's partly thanks to that relatively modest budget that Rise of the Planet of the Apes can expect to become a profitable movie this summer. The film banked a solid $54 million as the number one entry this weekend.

Cowboys & Aliens split the number one spot with The Smurfs in early weekend estimates. Both films banked around $36 million, but until official numbers are released on Monday the only losers are the audiences who paid to sit through either of the mediocre new releases.

Who doesnít love Neil Patrick Harris? Whether you know him as a child star on the Doogie Howser, M.D., the ridiculous drug addict in the Harold and Kumar movies, the womanizing and legen-wait for it-dary Barney Stinson on How I Met Your Mother or simply from his hosting duties at both the Emmys and the Tonys, the guy has proven to wide audiences time and time again that he is the epitome of awesome.

Have you spent all of your hard-earned money at the movie theater this summer? Has the box office drained your wallet? I hope not because Hollywood is nothing if not persistent. The bigwigs will get people to see anything. Aliens fighting cowboys in the Old West? Sure, put it up on screen. A cartoon about blue midgets from the 1980s? Greenlight it!

A few weeks back I had the chance to visit Sony Pictures animation, and when I wasn't deforming Smurfs using an animation program or making Clumsy Smurf curse up a storm as he ran away from a dog, I was talking to the people responsible for bringing the long-beloved characters to the silver screen.

As obsessed with cartoons as I was, however, and as much time that I spent illustrating and impersonating the characters, there was an underlying truth: I really sucked at it. All of my drawings with totally out of proportion and I could hardly draw a straight line. Even Oblina from Aaahh!!! Real Monsters, who is basically an upside-down black-and-white candy cane with eyes, was beyond my skills.

I can't imagine being a voice-over actor is easy. While some people dismiss it as being paid to stand in a booth and speak into a microphone, a real voice actor fully envisions their character, the world around them and the people they're interacting all while trying to deliver their lines with proper cadence. On that same note, being a live-action character interacting with animated characters can't be easy either.

The two Alvin and the Chipmunks movies and Enchanted were both huge family hits, so it was probably only a matter of time before the two would collide uncomfortably in a movie trying to mimic both of them. That movie seems to be The Smurfs

Thereís a new, full-length trailer for The Smurfs and in addition to giving us a more in-depth look at the movieís story, it also provides our first look at the great Hank Azaria as Gargamel. The movie seems a lot like the Chipmunks live-action films, with Neil Patrick Harris in the Jason Lee role

As bloodcurdlingly awful the trailers have been for the upcoming Yogi Bear, there are few trailer from this year that did more to crush my hopes, dreams and spirit more than the teaser for The Smurfs. Between the

The video couldn't be any more awful or typical if it tried. There is a dramatic voice-over, white-on-black title cards, "Wild Thing" by Tone Loc, and views of monuments around the world. Oh, and all of

Set aside the completely insane notion that Tim Gunn could be anyone's executive assistant-- because, come on, he'd be running the joint and making it work within minutes. Why is a cosmetics company involved in the Smurfs movie?

Lucky for everyone, Hank Azaria is going to be playing one of the few human characters in the film, and he wasn't just spotted by the paparazzi, but he hammed it up for the cameras right on the street corner

Sony has started production on The Smurfs and theyíve announced two more actors hired to provide voices for the filmís smurfy, little blue characters. Star Trekís Anton Yelchin is on board to play Clumsy Smurf

When I first saw the trailer for Avatar, I thought it was the live action Smurfs movie. I was wrong. In reality, The Smurfs will start filming next month. Big names are coming on board to lend their voices to the productio

When the people behind the Smurfs movie snagged Neil Patrick Harris to play the lead human character, we all knew that casting could only go downhill from there. I mean, no matter who you pick, they're not going to top NPH

Neil Patrick Harris is going to star in Smurfs: The Movie. Now before you get all excited about Barney Stinson voicing Papa Smurf or romancing Smurfette, relax-- he'll be playing the lead human character

It hasnít even been released yet, but somehow, James Cameronís Avatar has already forged a permanent place in our pop cultural consciouciousness. Itís place was solidified Wednesday night when Cameronís blue alien

Tron: Legacy has a release date. Disney has announced that theyíll release it December 17, 2010. That puts it up against newly bumped The Green Hornet and a pair of ancient cartoon to movie adaptations